Chapter Eighteen
A spiraling set of steps led the explorers into the depths of Mzulft. Both S’maash and Zolara casted candle light to reveal a variety of rock formations carved into the deep. Layers of strange mycelia covered the walls and ground of the cavernous extent. Zolara prodded at the luminescent growth.
“It looks similar to glowing mushroom, but I assure you, it isn’t,” the argonian commented. S’maash was indifferent; he was only focused on finding the next fragment. As Zolara kept pace, he considered the possibility of new reagents. “Did the dwemer practice alchemy?”
“I am unsure. Why?”
“I have never seen some of these mushrooms, much less had the privilege to study the actual root system.”
Progressing ever deeper, the cave-like structure of Mzulft opened into a black expanse of stone walls. Among the walls, the unknown mycelia glowed, providing an eerie, soft, blue light. S’maash felt somewhat agitated.
“It could be anywhere in here. This place is endless,” he complained.
“Perhaps, we should hug the walls in search of falmer structures.”
“Smart.”
“The left one or the right one,” Zolara asked.
“It doesn’t matter…left.”
“No, I like the right one.”
Rolling his eyes, S’maash sighed and followed behind him. A long walk ensued. Eventually, they came upon a hill. From its crest, they spotted mist far off in the distance to their left. The glow of mushrooms gave the fog a mystical, scintillating quality.
Disoriented by the expansive emptiness below Mzulft, Zolara tapped S’maash on the shoulder then pointed to the mist. His friend nodded, so they walked towards it until they realized it wasn’t mist at all. It was water. A towering, brass-like pipe rose from the water to heights unseen.
“This must be a source of steam,” Zolara concluded.
S’maash nodded accordingly, yet remained aloof. “It doesn’t help.”
After resting for a moment, they continued their search along the walls. Still, they found no results.
“I have an idea,” Zolara said. He proceeded to summon a storm atronach. Then, he fired spells of all kinds in every direction. “Do the same!” S’maash, a little confused and quite alarmed, rose from his seat. “We’re attracting falmer! Wherever they come from must be where we have to go,” the argonian yelled louder.
“Are you insane? We’ll get killed!”
“Hey, you want to find this thing, right?”
Wide eyed, and biting his lip, the dark elf struggled to devise a better plan, but the noise had already been created. First, S’maash overcharged ebony flesh then he summoned a flame atronach. Instead of wasting more of his magicka reserves, he resorted to clapping and whistling.
Their rowdiness continued for moments, yet there was nothing beyond their echoes and errant explosions of light. Huffing and panting, the two eyed one another.
S’maash ran back to the piping and beat it with sword and shield. The gargantuan tube reverberated with strong echoes.
“Excellent,” Zolara said.
For seconds, they both struck it. Then, they waited. Slow minutes rolled by before a flurry of feet were heard pounding over the ground. Both adventurers whipped their heads about, looking for the falmer stampede. Zolara spotted their approach and tapped S’maash. In order to provide certainty of orientation, the argonian placed a fire rune on the pipe, marking the direction from which to look.
“It appears as though more than a dozen falmer are coming. We had better summon atronachs,” S’maash suggested.
Flame and storm atronachs were summoned. The two demons waded into battle while their summoners found a rocky hill to hide behind. In the dark recess of Mzulft Deep, the falmer had an easy time wiping out the summoned creatures; the wiry mer struck the atronachs with swords and axes. Screeches of victory resounded, and the adventurers summoned more atronachs before moving to a different hill, one slightly closer to the fray.
While the bulk of the falmer attacked the atronachs, more of them spread out to search for intruders. Zolara suggested they pick off those who scattered from the herd, so they hid, launched spells, casted their ebony flesh, and moved to a new vantage point. When an atronach fell, they summoned anew, and in that manner, the falmer were reduced to ash.
The dunmer suddenly let out a cry of pain. A gloom lurker had snuck over and brained him with its shield. With a mighty hiss, the falmer struck again with wicked blade. Zolara turned only to receive a shield bash to the face.
S’maash drew his sword and let loose a volley of ice spikes with his free hand. Zolara snuck behind the enemy and slashed it with his dwarven sword of arching. The sneak attack was enough to bring the snow elf to its knees. S’maash finished it off with a thrust, penetrating the falmer’s carapace-like armor. The dead creature filled the daedric heart gem. Zolara then grasped S’maash shoulder.
“Atronachs and move,” he whispered.
The elf summoned a flame atronach and made for another area. In something like a depression, he dropped to his knees and propped up his elbows to look back; he had lost sight of his friend. A bright, bluish, glow revealed the argonian had conjured a frost atronach, an icy golem. Again, each mage tossed about fire bolts and icy spears, and again, more falmer managed to defeat the atronachs, yet the creatures began to flee. After reorganizing and giving chase, the mages reached an opening dug into the side of a hill and ensconced in darkness.
“I’d hate for them to regroup,” Zolara whispered.
“It will be easier to fight them in the corridor; they can’t surround us or move well.”
“Mm, let’s go slowly,” Zolara suggested.
“Very.”
As soon as the echoes of escape subsided, the explorers began to move, yet it was so dark, casting a light spell was a necessity. Undulating, magickal lighting revealed the corridor was hewn from a marble-type stone. It was quite beautiful as the glistening portions of shiny stone reflected the spell.
Much further in, they reached a twist, and then they came to another turn. Going one way, uphill, and rounding a corner before going downhill, they were left disoriented. Fortunately, the falmer seemed to have vanished. S’maash halted.
“What if there are multiple entrances in here and they work around to our rear? We might get caught in a pincer attack,” S’maash whispered in alarm.
“Well…too late to worry about that, now,” Zolara answered, dryly.
“Brelyna was right. There is something wrong with you.”
“Nonsense.”
Ambivalently—thinking of his task rather than death—S’maash pushed further into the depths. Minutes later, they felt a kind of rhythm; a droning thump was bleeding through the walls. Allowing the candle light to vanish, they crawled on all fours, ever so slowly, as they felt their way with their hands. The farther they crawled, the louder the rhythm grew. Soon, they saw a bit of orange light.
The corridor opened into a central, stage-like area. From the center stage were tight corridors leading to areas unknown. Below, from a precipice they had reached, S’maash and Zolara saw falmer.
A bonfire burned behind a structure at the epicenter of the stage, thirty feet below, and hundreds of yards away. The creatures were arranged in a circle. Two of them fought each other in front of a curious structure at the epicenter. The sitting, or spectating, falmer were simply beating sword and shield against the ground.
“By the Nine, what is this?” Zolara whispered.
“I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet that’s the other fragment,” the excitement in his tone gave way to apprehension.
While the falmer wrestled and pounded one another’s heads against the rocky ground, S’maash kept squinting at the structure; there was something unnerving about it, but it was too far away, and the strange shadows cast from the fire made it even more difficult to discern much of anything. Zolara tapped the elf’s shoulder then pointed down and to the right. There was a wind
ing path leading down to the stage, yet S’maash was hesitant.
“That is certainly the easiest way to reach them, but we’re going to have to hope they break off, and go to sleep, or eat, or something,” S’maash whispered. “It is senseless to risk getting injured or killed, and I doubt we can run all the way back to the entrance without having to stop and catch our breaths….”
Zolara nodded. Lying on their bellies, the two simply observed the fighters; the creatures behaved as gladiators, and the dark depths was their arena. It was hours later, after many of them fought each other—but without deaths—that they finally declared a winner. One rather stocky snow elf reigned supreme. He then cut himself with a strange weapon, wiped his blood, and flung it at the structure. Before leaving, he placed that weapon at the foot of the structure. One-by-one the creatures exited.
S’maash tapped Zolara’s shoulder; the argonian didn’t stir. With a huff, he grabbed his friend’s arm and shook it. Zolara let out a snort, realized the place was empty, and the two of them scuttled off below.
“Hey!” Zolara cheered. “Guess we found Paratus.”
The incomprehensible structure turned out to be a skeleton. Its wrists were cinched to two, chitinous posts while its waist was cinched to a third, taller post, in the center. Inside the skeleton’s ruptured ribcage was the second fragment of the Heart of Lorkhan, the supreme falmer’s blood still wet upon it. At Paratus’s bony feet was the weapon, a hammer.
Like Keening, it reverberated ever so slightly. In appearance, it was an ornate hammer with an edge on one side not unlike a hatchet, only less broad. Its dwemer steel handle was bejeweled. S’maash took it and the fragment then looked at Zolara, who was already making his way back to the corridor.
Safe on the precipice, the argonian casted candle light and summoned a flame atronach to guard their rear. From there, it was a long, if uneventful, journey to the large opening under Mzulft.
“Now we just need to find the way back into the actual ruins,” Zolara remarked.
Slowing from a full run to catch their breath, they moseyed all the way back to the large pipe. Figuring that as the center, S’maash chose a direction he thought was appropriate. Zolara decided to shoot fire balls instead, hoping to see the stairs. To their benefit, the ploy was succesful.
“Follow me,” he hissed.
A journey through Mzulft and back to Riften took several hours.